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Thursday, June 20, 2019

Sherpa shortage takes a toll on Everest

#Office view: Sherpa guide Ang
Tshering Lama poses during an interview at Everest base camp, some 140 km northeast
of Kathmandu, Nepal, on April 23. The Everest industry is suffering from a
dangerous shortage of its most important resources experienced Sherpa Guides.

The Everest industry is suffering
from a dangerous shortage of its most important resource: experienced Sherpa
guides.

Ethnic Sherpas from the valleys
around Everest have become synonymous with high altitude climbing.

With their unique ability to work in
a low-oxygen, high altitude atmosphere, they are the backbone of the industry,
hauling clients and equipment to the top of the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot)
mountain.

The number of Everest climbers has
more than doubled in two decades, however, and the Sherpa supply has not kept
pace. Raw recruits are now being used to reach the top and it has already taken
a toll.

Dawa Sange Sherpa, 20, summited
Mount Everest last year—a first for him and the climber he was with.

On the way down, the cold, lack of
oxygen and exhaustion took hold. The pair collapsed just below the summit and
were found hours later, barely alive.

"My friend said to me, 'He's
done'. But I found a small pulse in him," said guide Ang Tshering Lama,
who found Sange.

Everest victim

Lama dragged the unconscious Sange
back down the mountain while others helped his client.

Both had severe frostbite. Sange
lost all of his fingers, spelling the end of his short career on Everest.

#The number of Everest climbers has more than doubled in two decades but
the S..

Sange was not meant to be guiding
that year. He was planned to be carrying equipment up the mountain, a job many
young Sherpa do before graduating to become guide.

"I was in the second team, in
which untrained Sherpa usually carry the equipment and food from the base camp
to camp two, three and four," Sange said.

But his employer, Seven Summit
Treks, the largest Nepal-based expedition operator, had more than 60 clients on
Everest and needed someone to take a paying climber to the top.

Head of Seven Summit Treks Mingma
Sherpa said Sange was ready to be a guide and had previously summited Everest.
Sange said he had not.

Nine other Sherpa from Seven Summit
Treks were rescued on Everest that year, but Mingma denied there were any
problems.

"A Sherpa can summit five
times, eight times but sometimes he gets a problem. That's the body," he
said.

#Mountaineers walk from Camp 3 to
Camp 4 as they push for the summit of Mount ...

With the climbing season barely
started, so far this year at least four Sherpas from Seven Summit Treks have
already sustained frostbite, according to base camp sources.

'Risky business'

No qualifications are needed to work
on Everest. Some expedition operators require staff to do one of two short
courses for mountain workers. Others do not.

Mingma dismissed the Nepal
Mountaineering Association courses as worthless, saying everything could be
learned on the mountain.

"My Sherpa don't have any
training with NMA. NMA training for us is not enough, we should do our own
training on the mountain," he said.

Dawa Steven Sherpa of Asian Trekking
requires all staff to have done the NMA course. He said that budget expedition
operators hire inexperienced Sherpa to cut costs.

#Summit route on Mount Everest. The
Everest industry is suffering from a dangerous...

"As long as his name is
Sherpa," he quipped of the recruitment criteria.

Experienced Sherpa guides can make
up to $10,000 in the April to May climbing season, more than 14 times Nepal's
average annual income. The lowest paid will barely scrape together $1,000 for
two months' risky work.

"It's the fault of the clients
as well if they just close their eyes and go cheap," said Lama, who
rescued Sange.

Seven Summit Treks—which charges
about $20,000 to climb Everest, less than a third of other operators—blames
rivals for the shortage, accusing them of not investing in the next generation
of Sherpa guides.

"They take only experienced
Sherpas. They don't want to spend extra money to train new Sherpas,"
Mingma said.

Phurba Tashi Sherpa, head Sherpa
with the Himalayan Experience company, who has summited Everest 21 times, said
it was becoming more difficult to find experienced Sherpa for his team.

#A climber walks through base camp
below Everest, which is suffering from a...

dangerous shortage of its most
important resource: experienced Sherpa guides

"The young Sherpa are very
strong and they think they can do everything, but actually they can't. The
older Sherpa go slow and steady," he said.

Sherpa have been helping Everest
climbers since the first British teams set their sights on the summit in the
1920s.

Their unique physiology, adapted
over thousands of years of living at high altitudes, has made them essential
since. A recent British study found that Sherpas use oxygen more efficiently
than lowlanders.

But climbing Sherpa have arguably
become a victim of their own success, and the community is now at a
generational turning point.

Many experienced Sherpa who started
working for the first commercial expeditions in the 1990s are retiring. Others
have left Nepal for rival mountaineering countries buoyed by their reputation
for being strong and dedicated.

They have earned enough money to
educate their children in Kathmandu, or even in India and the United States.

#Tents at Everest base camp. No
qualifications are needed to work on ...

the mountain and although some
expedition operators require staff to do a short course for mountain workers,
others do not

"They are educated so they can
find other jobs," said Kami Rita Sherpa, who has been guiding on Everest
since 1994 and admits he would never allow his son to work in such a
"risky business".

"If the old climbing guides
don't bring their kids into this sector, the number of climbing Sherpas will
definitely decline," he continued.